"Unless the footnotes makes copious note of the fact that the authoritarian right-wing dictators -- especially in the western hemisphere - tended to have an a very large and very prosperous big brother showering them with everything from direct assistance to favorable trade and treaties, while the communist dictators in this particular hemisphere tended to have a combination of embargoes or worse"

Hasn't the only country to have an embago on Cuba been ours for a long time now? Doesn't virtually every single other nation on the planet trade with them? That's what you're trotting-out as the excuse for their miserable economy, one in that perhaps half of the pretty young girls become virtual prostitutes to tourists for hard cash? "The Embargo"? Wow. Talk about having a pre-concieved answer going in...

She was. I'd rather live under a Pinochet than a Stalin or even a Chavez. They're all scumbags, and there's no political freedom with any of them,
but at least under the Right Wing Scumbag you can get eat decently and get toilet paper.

Assuming you weren't one of the 80,000 interned, 30,000 tortured or 3,000 murdered of course. And the idea that the poor in Latin America did well under right wing dictatorships is also pretty hilarious.

If your argument is that Stalin was worse than Pinochet, then I concede. But Stalin and Chavez aren't exactly the same thing, and Pinochet was a lot closer to Stalin than Chavez was.

Also, for Chileans, the choice wasn't Pinochet or Stalin (or even Chavez), the choice was Pinochet or Allende.

Hasn't the only country to have an embago on Cuba been ours for a long time now? Doesn't virtually every single other nation on the planet trade with them? That's what you're trotting-out as the excuse for their miserable economy, one in that perhaps half of the pretty young girls become virtual prostitutes to tourists for hard cash? "The Embargo"? Wow. Talk about having a pre-concieved answer going in...

Let's set aside for a moment that yes -- when the world's largest economy, who also happens to be your closest neighbor, slaps an embargo on you -- it's no small thing...

But, it's more than just an embargo... How much direct aid was going to Pinochet's Chile? I know military aid alone was 11 million in the first years of Pinochet - I'm not going to do the inflationary conversion nor relative comparison to other nations, but when you're getting X millions (and that number above is JUST 'military aid') directly, it helps, too.

What of various trade deals and tax laws that would bestow 'too good to pass up' opportunities for investment in Chile by foreign companies?

Setting aside also that I'm not claiming to be a scholar here --

Let's also keep in mind that nowhere in my response did I make the claim Cuba could have or would have outperformed Chile under neutral conditions... I'm simply saying that this is a case of "No ####... Chile got an enormous amount of aid, assistance, support and favorability from the largest power in the Western hemisphere and largest economy in the world while Cuba got the exact opposite from the same." You don't need 'scholarly analysis' nor do you need to be Kreskin to guess back in 1972 that's how things would work out.

I mean - give me a break... a nation more closely aligned with the dominant area power shows more post-cold war 'success' than an enemy of that power who was aligned with the cold war loser in the other hemisphere... and this requires some great analysis to predict or we can draw any sort of conclusion from that beyond "it sure does help to be on the side of the winner" ideology aside?

Assuming you weren't one of the 80,000 interned, 30,000 tortured or 3,000 murdered of course.

there's no political freedom with any of them

Notice what I wote. Obviously, you need to keep your mouth shut under all the listed governments. But only the right wing ones provide any sort of economy for
life's necessities.

How many did Chavez toss into his hell hole prisons to die? Ordinary people sent to them suffered a fate worse than death, if the reports are even half true.

and this requires some great analysis to predict or we can draw any sort of conclusion from that beyond "it sure does help to be on the side of the winner" ideology aside?

Of course we can. Planned, centralized, Marxist economies always suck. Always. Period. Some suck more than others, East Germany was better than the USSR, but they all fall under the general heading of "suck". Freer, open economies are better. Some are better than others for various reasons, but they're always preferable to the Marxist model.

Sorry that was so tough for ya'.

Comparisons of dictators are somewhere between silly and repugnant. In terms of nastiness, there's a threshold, and once you're over that then you are irredeemable. Saying you'd rather live under dictator X than under dictator Y is like saying you'd prefer liver cancer to pancreatic cancer.

Notice what I wote. Obviously, you need to keep your mouth shut under all the listed governments. But only the right wing ones provide any sort of economy for
life's necessities.

How many did Chavez toss into his hell hole prisons to die? Ordinary people sent to them suffered a fate worse than death, if the reports are even half true.

Again, Chavez sucked. I sincerely hope the country will be better off without him. This Venezuelan human rights group lists 10 political prisoners under Chavez.

The German Army would have collapsed in front of the Allies in 1944 (like they did in '45), allowing us to overrun all of Germany, while fighting like hell to hold back the Soviets.

WTF???? Under who's orders? You really think Hitler was going to redeploy his army so he could surrender to the Anglo-Americans?

Snapper, you know very well how batshit impossible that scenario was so why did you even write it?

Of course we can. Planned, centralized, Marxist economies always suck. Always. Period. Some suck more than others, East Germany was better than the USSR, but they all fall under the general heading of "suck". Freer, open economies are better. Some are better than others for various reasons, but they're always preferable to the Marxist model.

Except it's not simple either/or...

If it were, we wouldn't hear the fear-mongering about China buying US debt (or at least, if we did/continue to - we'd at least have someone answering the fundamental question about how China with its planned economy is in a position to purchase US - free economy - debt).

We also would reconcile the use of Chinese labor to produce the many 'free market based' (nominally, from a corporate perspective) goods.

That's one of the real oddities I always find in these discussions... the love of 'free and open markets' -- at least, for the purported purveyors and titans of such -- always seems to have a funny way of stopping at the balance sheet. Ideology, or at least, economic ideology tends to take a back seat on the quarterly reports and P/L statements...

Freer, open economies are better.

Economies under right wing dictators aren't free either. Woe to the person who's 1-acre postage stamp of a lot happens to sit upon a mineral deposit the dictator hopes to use as a demonstration of his "prosperity plan".

In "Dictatorships and Double Standards," a work that caught the eye of President Ronald Reagan, Ms. Kirkpatrick argued that right-wing dictators such as Mr. Pinochet were ultimately less malign than communist rulers, in part because their regimes were more likely to pave the way for liberal democracies. She, too, was vilified by the left. Yet by now it should be obvious: She was right.

This is hilarious. Pinochet paved the way for liberal democracies by freaking overthrowing one. WTF.

and of course not long after a spate of communist dictatorships were transformed into liberal democracies...

Pinochet was a murderous thug- Chavez was no where close to him regarding political repression

And the idea that the poor in Latin America did well under right wing dictatorships is also pretty hilarious.

not hilarious, delusional

not hilarious, delusional

Well, if the claims in the Wapo editorial are true, Pinochet for all his faults did halve, IIRC, the Chilean poverty rate.
I'll beat you to the punch: No, he didn't simply kill them.

Freer, open economies are better.

Most of us would agree that that's true to a point (few want the economy to completely unfettered by regulation, for instance) - we just differ on what that point is. (As well as with the definition of "better".)




^ I, for example, believe in higher and more progressive tax rates on income than many of you likely would, but also prefer something closer to a "free market state" than your average lefty. Allende and friends struck me as, at best, weak on economics.

Well, if the claims in the Wapo editorial are true, Pinochet for all his faults did halve, IIRC, the Chilean poverty rate.
I'll beat you to the punch: No, he didn't simply kill them.

And the right wing dictatorships in Bolivia, Argentina, Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador all did wonderful things for their poor as well.

BTW, in 1982 Chile had one of the worst financial collapses of the modern era (after years of having UChicago economists advising Pinochet). It responded by nationalizing the banking sector.

few want the economy to completely unfettered by regulation, for instance

Well, Ray and DN do, but yes.

Myself, I'd be willing to accept a "guaranteed freeze" of all regulations and tax rates just about where they are, to tell you the truth(not that this would ever happen).
And this proves that I'm a centrist, I think. Or tend to be one.

Its the idea of an ever-growing govt share of GDP that scares me a bit. I don't think this is a good thing. YMMV, but its certainly not some kind of looney
right wing position. I'm more of an anti-lib than a conservative.

Myself, I'd be willing to accept a "guaranteed freeze" of all regulations and tax rates just about where they are

Why would anyone want to "freeze" regulations and tax rates? Doesn't this smack of socialist 5-year plans?

Its the idea of an ever-growing govt share of GDP that scares me a bit.

The govt share of the GDP is not historically high. This idea is part of a misinformation campaign constructed out of whole cloth by the rightwing think tanks, abetted by Fox News and their minions. The reason we have such a large deficit is historically low taxation rates, combined with a weak economy. And the low tax rates and weak economy are interlinked, as the rich have enjoyed the lion's share of that lowering, sequestering their capital while reducing demand in the economy for goods and services.

To get the economy going again, we need to tax the rich more and find ways to rejigger payscales to more equitable norms, so the rank and file make more and upper management makes less. That will increase demand for goods and services, stimulate hiring while lowering unemployment, keep interest rates low and start the long process of paying off the national debt.

BTW, in 1982 Chile had one of the worst financial collapses of the modern era (after years of having UChicago economists advising Pinochet). It responded by nationalizing the banking sector.

Glad someone got around to noticing that, and you might have added that the Chilean "economic miracle" followed soon after Pinochet's regime veered away from the "Chicago Boys" ideal. Prior to that, there was no such "miracle." The best you can say about Pinochet is that Allende's government was on a collision course with economic disaster, and that the coup halted the slide---but at what a cost in human life and political repression.

----------------------------------

This is hilarious. Pinochet paved the way for liberal democracies by freaking overthrowing one. WTF.

and of course not long after a spate of communist dictatorships were transformed into liberal democracies...

In both of these cases the transformation came from the bottom up, but in the case of Chile there was a long tradition of democracy that provided a pre-existing template for the post-dictators to follow. No such tradition for the most part existed behind the Iron Curtain or in Russia itself.

Pinochet for all his faults did halve, IIRC, the Chilean poverty rate.

I've seen the same claim made about Chavez and Venezuela. I have no idea of the truth of either.

To get the economy going again, we need to tax the rich more and find ways to rejigger payscales to more equitable norms, so the rank and file make more and upper management makes less. That will increase demand for goods and services, stimulate hiring while lowering unemployment, keep interest rates low and start the long process of paying off the national debt.

You're partially right. We need to increase the return on labor, i.e. wages.

But you can't do it through taxation. You need to address the fundamental cause of wage stagnation; globalization and trade.

Its the idea of an ever-growing govt share of GDP that scares me a bit.


The govt share of the GDP is not historically high. This idea is part of a misinformation campaign constructed out of whole cloth by the rightwing think tanks, abetted by Fox News and their minions.

1: Actually the last several years has been "historically high"- if you don't count WWII
See chart about 1/3 from top

2: It spiked up under Bush 2 and has started trending down under Obama- it also climbed under Reagan and went down under Clinton- in fact you'll note that over the past 50 or so years it tends to go up under Repub Admins and down under Dems

The reason we have such a large deficit is historically low taxation rates, combined with a weak economy. And the low tax rates and weak economy are interlinked, as the rich have enjoyed the lion's share of that lowering, sequestering their capital while reducing demand in the economy for goods and services.

2/3 true, the missing 1/3 is that there has been Government spending increases- and healthcare has been driving that increase- and no it has not been Obama care (yet) it's been medicare/medicaid and Bush's prescription drug coverage thingie.

Tax receipts are taking about 15% now, since WWII it's been between 15 and 20

Pinochet for all his faults did halve, IIRC, the Chilean poverty rate.

I've seen the same claim made about Chavez and Venezuela. I have no idea of the truth of either.

The poverty rate did halve under Chavez, but this is something of a red herring. He came to power when Venezuela's economy was at an all-time low. It's worth quoting Wikipedia:

Because of the oil wealth, Venezuelan workers "enjoyed the highest wages in Latin America."[25] This situation was reversed when oil prices collapsed during the 1980s. The economy contracted, and the number of people living in poverty rose from 36% in 1984 to 66% in 1995.[26] The country suffered a severe banking crisis (Venezuelan banking crisis of 1994).

As the economy contracted in the 1980s, inflation levels (consumer price inflation) fell, remaining between 6 and 12% from 1982 to 1986.[27] In the late 80s and early 90s inflation rose to around 30 - 40% annually, with a 1989 peak of 84%.[27] The mid-1990s saw annual rates of 50-60% (1993 to 1997) with an exceptional peak in 1996 at 99.88%.[27] Subsequently inflation has remained in a range of around 15% to 30%.[27]

By 1998, the economic crisis had grown even worse. Per capita GDP was at the same level as 1963, down a third from its 1978 peak; and the purchasing power of the average salary was a third of its 1978 level.

So under Chavez the poverty rate did halve, from something like 60% to something like 30%. But it had taken a very long series of disasters to make it that bad, and the economy would have improved by leaps and bounds under almost anyone. Maybe Chavez made it 5% better or 5% worse, but he's not responsible for halving the poverty rate.

The govt share of the GDP is not historically high. This idea is part of a misinformation campaign constructed out of whole cloth by the rightwing think tanks, abetted by Fox News and their minions.

Go to the link listed in section 1 of post 121.

Look for the chart entitled Federal, State, Local Spending in 20th Century

There's various ebbs and wanes for wars or whatever, but if you don't concede a glaring, multi-decade historical trend screamimg out at you,
you're either an imbicile or at an Erich Von Daniken level of intellectual dishonesty.

I'd rather live under a Pinochet than a Stalin or even a Chavez.

Really? Do tell.

The Report of the National Commission on Political Imprisonment and Torture was commissioned in 2003 to create the most comprehensive list possible of those who were imprisoned and tortured for political reasons during the military dictatorship from September 1973 to March 1990. This mandate was vastly different from that of the first Chilean truth commission, The Rettig Report of 1991, which enumerated solely those who had been disappeared or murdered.

Published in 2005, the report greatly expanded on the official version of the extent of repression in Chile. The Commission took testimony from 35,868 individuals who were tortured or imprisoned improperly. Of those, 27,255 were verified and included. An unknown number of victims did not come forward to give testimony. Scholars estimate that the real number is between 150,000 and 300,000 victims.

94 per cent of the verified testimonies include incidents of torture. The short list of methods includes repeated kicking or hitting, intentional physical scarring, forcing victims to maintain certain positions, electric shocks to sensitive areas, threats, mock execution, humiliation, forced nudity, sexual assault, witnessing the torture or execution of others, forced Russian roulette, asphyxiation, and imprisonment in inhumane conditions. There are many individuals with permanently distorted limbs or other disfigurations. For others, the memory of the humiliation is what remains. One man testified, “While they interrogated me, they took off my clothes and attached electrodes to my chest and testicles…They put something in my mouth so that I wouldn’t bite my tongue while they shocked me.”
[...]
For women, it was an especially violent experience. The commission reports that nearly every female prisoner was the victim of repeated rape. The perpetration of this crime took many forms, from military men raping women themselves to the use of foreign objects on victims. Numerous women (and men) report spiders or live rats being implanted into their orifices. One woman wrote, “I was raped and sexually assaulted with trained dogs and with live rats. They forced me to have sex with my father and brother who were also detained. I also had to listen to my father and brother being tortured.” Her experiences were mirrored by those of many other women who told their stories to the commission. -Lauren R. Foote, The Harvard Crimson

Chavez is certainly no angel, but given a free choice, I'd rather live under the guy who isn't going to shove live rats into my anus.

1: Actually the last several years has been "historically high"- if you don't count WWII
See chart about 1/3 from top

2: It spiked up under Bush 2 and has started trending down under Obama- it also climbed under Reagan and went down under Clinton- in fact you'll note that over the past 50 or so years it tends to go up under Repub Admins and down under Dems

The reason we have such a large deficit is historically low taxation rates, combined with a weak economy. And the low tax rates and weak economy are interlinked, as the rich have enjoyed the lion's share of that lowering, sequestering their capital while reducing demand in the economy for goods and services.



2/3 true, the missing 1/3 is that there has been Government spending increases- and healthcare has been driving that increase- and no it has not been Obama care (yet) it's been medicare/medicaid and Bush's prescription drug coverage thingie.

Tax receipts are taking about 15% now, since WWII it's been between 15 and 20

It's almost as if all of this talk of deficits, government spending, and social programs are some of misdirection-based mirage to obscure the extent and relative role that the military industrial complex Ike talked about plays in the whole tax-and-spend schema.... but then, I don't want to sound like a conspiracy-mongering loon... because that would mean an awful lot of very smart people are getting 'played' like fiddles by an ingenuous ideology-tinged political marketing strategy :-)

Chavez is certainly no angel, but given a free choice, I'd rather live under the guy who isn't going to shove live rats into my anus.

Yikes.

Anyway, my point was if you could manage to avoid being picked-up for a political crime, Chile seems a better place to live. Obviously, you gotta keep your mouth shut
either place. You and the whole extended family, really.

It's almost as if all of this talk of deficits, government spending, and social programs are some of misdirection-based mirage to obscure the extent and relative role that the military industrial complex Ike talked about plays in the whole tax-and-spend schema.

military spending as a % of GDP has been relatively flat for quite some time, basically the trend has been down since the mid 50s, as a % of GDP it's lower now than anytime since before WWII- so, umm, no, not really.

127-Stop using facts! Everybody knows that the military takes like 90% of our taxes!

BTW, I don't get the joke, if there is one, in your handle. Please explain?

Chavez is certainly no angel, but given a free choice, I'd rather live under the guy who isn't going to shove live rats into my anus.

And yet, this was Henry the K's boy.

Henry the K. The world's most under-the-radar war criminal. The man who taught Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney how to be a homocidal fascist and get away with it.

Also, I remember that in the mid 90's Guiliani required all NYC welfare recipients to be finger-printed to prove their identity as an actual, legitimate case.
The left howled like crazy. IIRC, the number of people on welfare in NYC went down drastically and quickly, much too fast to be explained away by the expanding economy due to the GOP forcing Clinton to cut capital gains taxes big time.

It's almost as if all of this talk of deficits, government spending, and social programs are some of misdirection-based mirage to obscure the extent and relative role that the military industrial complex Ike talked about plays in the whole tax-and-spend schema.... but then, I don't want to sound like a conspiracy-mongering loon... because that would mean an awful lot of very smart people are getting 'played' like fiddles by an ingenuous ideology-tinged political marketing strategy :-)

Military spending as a percentage of GDP is probably still higher than it should be, but it's much lower than it was in the past (currently a little over half of what it was during the vietnam war, for instance, and roughly equal to where it was at the lowest point of the 1970's), and trending down. Once we get out of Afghanistan, it should fall to the second-lowest level since WW2, about 1% higher than it was at the end of the Clinton era.

This doesn't even consider the fact that a huge component of the current DoD budget is the remarkable increase in health care costs over the last 10 years, nearly tripling since 2001. If that increase is removed from the calculation, defense spending post-Afghanistan withdrawal would reach a post-WW2 low by 2015.

Edit: Or what johnny said.

military spending as a % of GDP has been relatively flat for quite some time, basically the trend has been down since the mid 50s, as a % of GDP it's lower now than anytime since before WWII- so, umm, no, not really.

Of course - whether that's true or not depends an awful lot on how you categorize 'military spending' -- assuming you're using the same exclusion of operations formula that various industry analysts/lobbyists like to use, the costs of everything from Vietnam to Iraq I and Iraq II (plus anything else smaller in between) don't count in that equation.

We can make domestic/non-military spending as a % of GDP look flat, too -- all we have to do is start not counting actual spending and categorize it under supplementals :-)

Chavez is certainly no angel, but given a free choice, I'd rather live under the guy who isn't going to shove live rats into my anus.

Given a free choice, I'd rather live under the guy who volutnarily relinquishes power.

I often wonder what the quality and mechanical sophistication of our US-based consumer automobile, aerospace and infotech products would be like if we had a military budget that was in line with other advanced economies. My guess is we would be kicking the asses of our German and Japanese and Korean competitors.

Some other nifty tricks used to calculate the "defense spending" number...

I think most folks would agree that maintenance of our nuclear arms stockpile and testing facilities for such purposes is in reality, "defense spending", right?

But guess what... that number -- just like Mess-o-potamima -- actually doesn't "count" against defense spending... Those costs are actually borne by the Department of Energy - -annual budget, 30 billion.... more than 1/3 of that 30 billion goes directly towards the care and feeding of nuclear arms capability.

The VA -- Veterans Affairs -- which has a budget of nearly 90 billion... guess what... that doesn't count as 'defense spending' either!

Accounting is fun!

BTW, I don't get the joke, if there is one, in your handle. Please explain?

It came from an online pissing match between Joe Sheehan and Tom Tango: here

My handles used to be JPWF13 and Johnny Ruin

My guess is we would be kicking the asses of our German and Japanese and Korean competitors.

Wow. Just wow.

136-thanks.

This doesn't even consider the fact that a huge component of the current DoD budget is the remarkable increase in health care costs over the last 10 years, nearly tripling since 2001. If that increase is removed from the calculation, defense spending post-Afghanistan withdrawal would reach a post-WW2 low by 2015.

Edit: Or what johnny said.

No - wrong...

As mentioned above -- those "health care costs", where you're presumably talking about VA care... not part of the number folks use when they claim "defense spending is flat/lower than X!"

Add the DoD budget + the VA budget + DoE nuclear arms care and feeding + supplementals for operations + a bunch of line items from other cabinet level departments that are actually more properly classified as "defense spending" (CIA, DHS, etc)....

THEN - look at your costs....

Domestic spending main problem is that "it" hasn't been clever enough to hide the costs under agencies or split off into a completely separate line item that 'doesn't count' when folks make their charts.

Don't get the meaning of #137.

Given a free choice, I'd rather live under the guy who volutnarily relinquishes power.

ridiculous false equivalence, considering he gained that power by murdering the legitimate president, unlike Chavez

Sure that Joe Kennedy is unhappy; Chavez was his benefactor and the only reason for any marginal relevance he ever had, for good or bad. And that is hard to do with that last name.

Chavez was a POS dictator; if he had been identified as "right wing" instead of "left", there wouldn't be any of the concern that is being shown for his sainted memory.

Given a free choice, I'd rather live under the guy who volutnarily relinquishes power.

Alternately, Chavez was democratically elected, unlike Pinochet - and then there's the torture and murders. (edit: a frescolita to SY)

Whatever - I'm not interested in figuring out which dude was less evil (probably Chavez) and only marginally more so in figuring out who was a better head of state (probably Pinochet). Both were bad news.

Given a free choice, I'd rather live under the guy who volutnarily relinquishes power.

Yes, after 15 years, and while still remaining Commander in Chief of the Army for another 10 years. I suppose you can give the old man credit for "voluntarily" not ratcheting it up with yet another coup after he lost that 1988 referendum, but most people would credit that more to national and international pressures than to any sudden change of heart on Pinochet's part. His subsequent treatment by Chileans upon his return back home gives us a pretty good summary of how the Chileans themselves viewed both him and his regime. I'm sure that this conclusion would have struck Pinochet as reflecting some sort of ingratitude, but then that's usually the way dictators think.

Anyway, my point was if you could manage to avoid being picked-up for a political crime, Chile seems a better place to live. Obviously, you gotta keep your mouth shut either place. You and the whole extended family, really.

It's that caveat that makes all the difference, though. Chavez does a lot of nefarious things to squelch free speech, but the average man-on-the-street was several orders of magnitude more likely to be subjected to extreme torture under Pinochet. That's why the comparison doesn't really work.

A better modern analogue for life under Pinochet would be Uzbekistan under Islam Karimov, which has a fast-growing economy and a notable willingness to torture and murder dissidents.

Chavez was a POS dictator; if he had been identified as "right wing" instead of "left", there wouldn't be any of the concern that is being shown for his sainted memory.

And who here is defending Chavez's memory, sacred or otherwise? Everyone here agrees that he was both a dictator and a demagogue.

Given a free choice, I'd rather live under the guy who voluntarily relinquishes power.

Not to go too deep into the "great Man" theory of history, but it seems to me that it matter a great deal (short term and long term) whether your founding father is George Washington/Nelson Mandela or Anastasio Bustamante/Robert Mugabe

Speaking of double standards, it's interesting that Cuba's record in extending life expectancy and providing universal health care is widely brushed off as not being a counterweight to Castro's totalitarian rule, whereas Chile's belated rise in GDP under Pinochet (after the Friedmanites' legacy had been largely diluted) is somehow trotted out as modifying his undisputed record of murder and torture.

Of course neither of those "miracles" justify the existence of a police state, which is a point so obvious that it shouldn't even have to be repeated.

Citgo is my gasoline of choice. I'll hold off on expressing an opinion till I see if prices at the pumps around here are affected.

And who here is defending Chavez's memory, sacred or otherwise? Everyone here agrees that he was both a dictator and a demagogue.

The people in this thread who wanted him to get a moment of silence at the WBC?

Some other nifty tricks used to calculate the "defense spending" number...

I think most folks would agree that maintenance of our nuclear arms stockpile and testing facilities for such purposes is in reality, "defense spending", right?

unless there has been a change from including them in the defense numbers to not including them this wouldn't affect the trendline much.
Plus a lot of the surge in the VA budgets from the 60s-70s-80s was the aging of the WWII generation
the current surge is pretty much linked to the surge in medical costs in general

Zonk, you are correct that the VA is a seperate department, but you're mixing apples and oranges. Health care for DoD service members (TRICARE) is absolutely a component of each services defense budget and is included in the numbers I cited above. It's risen from 3% to roughly 10% of the annual DoD budget, and can't really be cut- it's a function of rising health care costs in the larger economy.

I don't know whether VA or DOE budgets are included- I suspect they are, since it uses ~900B as the FY12 defense budget number and the president's budget was only $672B (base budget of $553 billion and $117.8 billion for Iraq/Afghanistan). Either way, it's a conservative estimate that, if anything, probably overstates the total defense costs.

Edit: Found the page that talks about what is included, and VA is. As well as foreign military aid, civil defense, etc. DOE appears to not be included, but it's "just" ~11B/year.

The people in this thread who wanted him to get a moment of silence at the WBC?

Team Venezuela was playing and they asked for it, for my money he wasn't so thuggish as to automatically discount it- by Latin American standards his human rights record was pretty mediocre- that's not "good" of course, but despite the frothing on the right he was no Pinochet or Castro on that score- plus it was Miami, and giving him a moment of silence in Miami would get the Miami Cubans really really really riled up...

hey the entertainment factor should always be considered.

The people in this thread who wanted him to get a moment of silence at the WBC?

I thought having the VZ flag at half mast was appropriate and have said only bad things about Chavez here. Do I think him "saintly"?

Do I think him "saintly"?

Clearly.

Been running into the sentiments expressed here--are they true or false?

The people in this thread who wanted him to get a moment of silence at the WBC?

I thought having the VZ flag at half mast was appropriate and have said only bad things about Chavez here. Do I think him "saintly"?

I dunno. Do you?

I do think suggesting that a person be given a moment of silence at a public event consists of "defending their memory" however.

I thought having the VZ flag at half mast was appropriate and have said only bad things about Chavez here. Do I think him "saintly"?

The most troubling aspects of Chavez rule wasn't so much his domestic rule in Venezuela- he wasn't any more thuggish than usual for Venezuela, what really angered people in Venezuela was that some of the people who used to benefit from government there no longer did, and some people who never benefited from the government/oil money did instead- not coincidentally that was also the source of his popularity in Venezuela-

the troubling thing was sucking up to/support of almost every "anti-imperialist" tin pot dictatorial regime on the globe-
no matter how thuggish you were, no matter how many dissidents/common citizens you killed/jailed/tortured - if you hated America he had your back-
he claimed to be pro-democracy; pro social justice; etc etc., and yet he'd support regimes like Iran, Libya, Syria... why? Because they were anti-American, and to Chavez being anti-imperialist means being anti-American, in a way he had the same type of myoptic/tunneled world view that someone like Dick Cheney does.

unless there has been a change from including them in the defense numbers to not including them this wouldn't affect the trendline much.
Plus a lot of the surge in the VA budgets from the 60s-70s-80s was the aging of the WWII generation
the current surge is pretty much linked to the surge in medical costs in general

OK - digging through the sources used in the table here -- some is included, some is not... Looks like the total 2012 number they used does include the VA, pensions, and supplementals (hence, 900 billion rather than the 550 billion that is the 'actual' DoD budget).

I'd argument it's still low -- the DoE number (10 to 20 billion -- more of the DoE's budget goes towards non-nuclear costs that funnel directly to the military, too) is missing. There's also a few billion (3-4-5 billion) that comes out of NASA (defense satellites and such... which DoD doesn't cut a check out of its budget for, but actually comes from NASA's budget). We also need to figure out how to allocate significant portions of DHS, CIA, FBI, etc. In addition, the Dept of State is the one that actually pays for things like military aid to allies -- not DoD -- and that's another 6 billion or so...

Finally, there's also the question about how you line item the deficit costs for past expenses?

The 900 billion cited here is still low -- add the other appropriate bits and pieces and you would generally come out at around 1 trillion -- that's NOT including debt the defense share of debt servicing. Let me divy up debt servicing - and also go the other direction will further allocations that aren't charged to the "defense budget", but only exist because of 'defense' -- and I bet I can get that number up to 1.5 trillion without resorting to anything outright false (i.e., allocations that would certainly 'pass' common accounting standards and practices muster).

I dunno. Do you?

Heh - no. Though, if so, I need a second career designing movie posters: "Probably Less Evil Than Pinochet!" "Clerks 3: More Fun Than Getting Stabbed"

I do think suggesting that a person be given a moment of silence at a public event consists of "defending their memory" however.

First, let's swap moment of silence with having the Venezuelan flag at half mast for the game (not the series as Northey asked for in a post I said I was down with). Okay, with that in mind:
This guy was popularly elected. To the best of my knowledge (correct me here if need be), while he abused the powers of the state in many ways, this was not a wholly manufactured outcome - he drew on real support from the poor to win a slim majority of votes. We were hosting a delegation (the baseball team) representing his nation on the day he died. Show them / their nation that you acknowledge it, then move on. It's not honoring the guy or defending his memory, it's courtesy.

the troubling thing was sucking up to/support of almost every "anti-imperialist" tin pot dictatorial regime on the globe

One of many troubling things, yes.

I do think suggesting that a person be given a moment of silence at a public event consists of "defending their memory" however.

The moment of silence wouldn't be for the man; it would be for the head of state of a participant nation in an international sporting festival. The office of head of state of Venezuela warrants respect; accordingly, a moment of silence wouldn't have been remotely out of line. It's actually rather crass and classless that one wasn't conducted.

Alternately, Chavez was democratically elected,

If it's ok, I won't ask "Do you know who else was democratically elected?"

ridiculous false equivalence, considering he gained that power by murdering the legitimate president, unlike Chavez

Chavez first tried to gain power via coup d'etat, just like that other guy!

The earlier point still stands: Neither Chavez nor Pinochet deserve a moment of silence.

Been running into the sentiments expressed here--are they true or false?

See my #122. They are technically true, but Chavez started running the country when it was at the end of a long disaster of debt crises, hyperinflation, and banking failures, and also right before oil prices exploded. In other words, lots of things got better in Venezuela under Chavez, but it's not at all clear or even especially likely that Chavez was the cause of any of it.

As a comparison, from January 2002 to today the poverty rate in Argentina has dropped from about 50% to about 8%. Their economy is doing OK, but the relative decline says a lot more about the Argentine economy in 2002 than it does about the economy in 2013.

The earlier point still stands: Neither Chavez nor Pinochet deserve a moment of silence.

Nah, it's just more of America and Americans getting showy and strident about ####, with no sense of balance or respect for other peoples, and no sense of its own resolute hypocrisy.

Say, was Chavez ever excommunicated, or did he remain a proper Catholic until the very end? You know, like Pinochet, and Hitler, and the like?

You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. None. You clearly don't even know what the word means, or what its purpose is, or under what circumstances it is used.

Well obviously I could never claim to have the depth of knowledge of Papist machinations to match someone like yourself or noted theologian Jack Chick. It is a fact that Hitler, Pinochet, and Chavez, all Catholic, were never excommunicated, is it not? I do recall hearing that Josef Goebbels *was* excommunicated, is that correct? If so, I wonder what he did to distinguish himself in the eyes of the Papacy as opposed to less theologically troublesome actions of Hitler, Chavez, and Pinochet.

I believe in modern times excommunication is saved for the truly vile and dangerous individuals, like these. Or Joe DiMaggio. Good thing Hitler never did anything so heinous or he'd have run afoul of the wrath of Christ!

And, Hilter privately hated Catholicism, and all of Christianity, because "It came from the Jews". Look it up.

"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison."

You see, your problem is you don't realize Jesus couldn't have been Jewish

Hitler was well aware of arguments that were central to the Institute: that Jesus was an Aryan, and that Paul, as a Jew, had falsified Jesus’s message, themes he repeatedly mentioned in private conversations, together with rants against the church as a Jewish subversion of the Aryan spirit (though the reliability of his reported private conversations is uncertain). In a diatribe alleged to have occurred in October of 1941, the month Hitler made the decision to murder the Jews, Hitler proclaimed that Jesus was not a Jew, but a fighter against Jewry whose message was falsified and exploited by Paul: "St. Paul transformed a local movement of Aryan opposition to Jewry into a super-temporal religion, which postulates the equality of all men . . . [causing] the death of the Roman Empire."

As Goebbels remarked on multiple occasions, "Christ could not possibly have been a Jew. It is not necessary to prove that scientifically, it is a fact."

Here's an irrefutable statement from this guy: "I am now, as before, a Catholic and will always remain so." It would have been a happy accident of history if only his transgressions against Papist doctrine were egregious enough to prompt Christ's Representative On Earth to utter, "Nope." But then again there was a war going on, you'd hate to pick the wrong side.

"When Dr. Edoardo Senatro, the correspondent of L'Osservatore Romano in Berlin, asked Pius XII whether he would not protest the extermination of the Jews, the Pope is reported to have answered, "Dear friend, do not forget that millions of Catholics serve in the German armies. Shall I bring them into conflicts of conscience?" The Pope knew that the German Catholics were not prepared to suffer martyrdom for their Church; still less were they willing to incur the wrath of their Nazi rulers for the sake of the Jews whom their own bishops for years, had castigated as a harmful influence in German life." (The Catholic Church and Nazi Germany, p 304, you can read it yourself on Google Books here.)

Hitler, Himmeler, Hoess, Streicher, all openly professed Catholics, as were approximately 33% of the German populous as a whole. The Pope's pusillanimity in offering any sort of specific rebuke against these men and their feckless slaughter of millions, including many of the same populations previously targeted under Catholic Inquisitorial wrath, is their yellow star which cannot be so easily removed.

I called you a semi-plagiarist, tongue-in-cheek, in that you clearly go off and do a hours of reasearch, borrow ideas from here and there, and then try to pass off some huge multi-thousand word boxing post as something you dashed-off "extemporaeously".

See, this is why I wish you'd just let me call you on the phone and have a discussion about boxing. My particular area of scholarly emphasis is 1890-1930 with two main focuses, the technical transition from bare-knuckle to small-glove techniques, and Jack Dempsey's early years fighting in hobo camps (for which I've subjected my wife to numerous diversions while we went camping in Colorado and Utah, so that I could comb old newspaper archives). I've also served as a consultant on a 2007 documentary on Jewish boxers in the first part of the 20th century, which included personally tracking down the whereabouts of this man, a concentration camp survivor who was made to fight for the amusement of camp guards, and who later fought Rocky Marciano (he refused, through his son, to be interviewed). I know my stuff and what I don't know I'm happy to admit I don't (i.e. almost anyone of the last 15 years or so - I'm frequently asked how I think Floyd Mayweather ranks among the all-time welterweights, and I have to honestly reply, "I don't know," since I've hardly seen him fight), and your clownish jibes about "semi-plagarism" were so obviously stupid and ignorant that your backpedaling would have implicated anyone who cites a player's WAR or a summary of the playoffs from more than a few years back. I sure as hell can dash off a few thousand words on any of several boxing topics extemporaneously, especially if they're in my wheelhouse, like my previous posts on Jack Johnson's championship reign.

You want to insist on being a jerkass and jumping into this thread on #34 with personal attacks right off the bat? Fine. I'm not going to be cowed by any sackless internet blowhard.

Whatever. All bigots are small men. You're a f*cking bigot.

I appreciate how you lean on slurs and insults when you initiate these exchanges - please note that you did so on this thread without any prompting on my part. How like Christ you are. I suppose I could have turned the other cheek in response to your puerile comments, but I'm not the one who is supposed to adhere to that now am I.

You hate Catholics. I'd bet that's not the only group you hate, but its the only group you
can get away with mocking in polite society.

Quick to climb on the cross I see. You've obviously chosen to overlook my repeatedly stated distaste for the Irish, to say nothing of Bud Selig's cadre of cronies and Red Sox fans. You should know better than to think I'd be concerned about utterly specious and self-serving claims of bigotry on this forum.

They are technically true, but Chavez started running the country when it was at the end of a long disaster of debt crises, hyperinflation, and banking failures, and also right before oil prices exploded. In other words, lots of things got better in Venezuela under Chavez, but it's not at all clear or even especially likely that Chavez was the cause of any of it.

Then at the very least, his policies didn't stand in the way of the business cycle and normal recovery mechanisms working.

If the guy halved the poverty rate, he halved the poverty rate.(*) I'm not sure what the footnotes and caveats add to the analysis.

(*) Assuming he did, of course.

We were hosting a delegation (the baseball team) representing his nation on the day he died. Show them / their nation that you acknowledge it, then move on. It's not honoring the guy or defending his memory, it's courtesy.

Yes, exactly. I would have thought this would be obvious.

First, let's swap moment of silence with having the Venezuelan flag at half mast for the game (not the series as Northey asked for in a post I said I was down with). Okay, with that in mind:
This guy was popularly elected. To the best of my knowledge (correct me here if need be), while he abused the powers of the state in many ways, this was not a wholly manufactured outcome - he drew on real support from the poor to win a slim majority of votes. We were hosting a delegation (the baseball team) representing his nation on the day he died. Show them / their nation that you acknowledge it, then move on. It's not honoring the guy or defending his memory, it's courtesy.

Ok, so you DO want to honor his memory, even if you want to rationalize it as courtesy. Fair enough, and this explains why you were defensive in 153.

Given a free choice, I'd rather live under the guy who volutnarily relinquishes power.

So, not Barack Obama, then.

I note that Nixon did voluntarily relinquish power.

JFK relinquished power, but not voluntarily.

Do you know who else was democratically elected?

Hey, buddy - I've got punchlines too.

(Anyway - he wasn't initially, but whatever. My real point is what Vlad quoted.)

There's also a few billion (3-4-5 billion) that comes out of NASA (defense satellites and such... which DoD doesn't cut a check out of its budget for, but actually comes from NASA's budget). We also need to figure out how to allocate significant portions of DHS, CIA, FBI, etc. In addition, the Dept of State is the one that actually pays for things like military aid to allies -- not DoD -- and that's another 6 billion or so...

This is incorrect. Foreign military aid is included in the data, and satellite procurement, operations, and sustainment is included in the services budgets. The Air Force pays for WGS, AEHF, SBIRS, etc, the Navy pays for MUOS, etc. There may be some gaps with the NRO stuff, since their budget comes from both DoD and the intel community, but that's a pretty small budget anyway.

DHS, CIA, FBI etc are not military organizations and as such are a seperate problem. DHS in particular should probably be eliminated completely.

Ok, so you DO want to honor his memory, even if you want to rationalize it as courtesy. Fair enough, and this explains why you were defensive in 153.

You're a funny dude.

Apparently, 153 demanded some sort of "I'm laughing with or at you" font; mea culpa.

Nah, it's just more of America and Americans getting showy and strident about ####, with no sense of balance or respect for other peoples, and no sense of its own resolute hypocrisy.

I don't buy that the moment of silence is about the nation, not the individual. AG nailed it in #50: "I don't understand this. The country didn't die. Obviously lowering the flag is to respect the man, and I don't see him as deserving of respect."

Having said that, SBB, where do you draw the line on moments of silence? Mugabe? Assad? Ahmadinejad? Stalin? Hitler?

DHS, CIA, FBI etc are not military organizations and as such are a seperate problem. DHS in particular should probably be eliminated completely.

The Coast Guard is now under DHS rather than Defense. No idea how this fits in the data above, but it's a $9 billion budget item.

Having said that, SBB, where do you draw the line on moments of silence? Mugabe? Assad? Ahmadinejad? Stalin? Hitler?

Where do you? (Sincere question.)

Been running into the sentiments expressed here--are they true or false?

Mussolini made the trains run on time. And see #162.

Having said that, SBB, where do you draw the line on moments of silence? Mugabe? Assad? Ahmadinejad? Stalin? Hitler?

Is Chavez in these peoples' league? I sure don't see it.

He died with his nation at peace, and was the head of state of a non-outlaw nation playing a game in an international tournament. Frankly, I don't even know what diplomatic protocol is on the matter, but if the US didn't follow it in favor of pitching a politically-motivated, theatrical hissy fit, I find that crass and classless, as noted. There's essentially no basis for not having the moment of silence if that is what protocal calls for.

Where do you? (Sincere question.)

Why must we honor any of these guys at a baseball stadium?

Given a free choice, I'd rather live under the guy who voluntarily relinquishes power.

So, not Barack Obama, then.

Yes, how dare he win re-election.

I note that Nixon did voluntarily relinquish power.

Right, after it'd become dead certain that he was going to be impeached. That was about as "voluntary" as a Vietnam era draftee who weighed all the factors and decided at the last minute not to skip to Canada when he saw his local draft board official waiting for him at the border.

Why must we honor any of these guys at a baseball stadium?

I don't think it is honoring the guy, but I understand why someone might.
That aside, would you do this with the Canadian flag if their PM died in the morning?


Andy, I think you're reading Ray wrong.

Right, after it'd become dead certain that he was going to be impeached. That was about as "voluntary" as a Vietnam era draftee who weighed all the factors and decided at the last minute not to skip to Canada when he saw his local draft board official waiting for him at the border.

For once, Andy, we agree - although I fear you cannot detect sarcasm.

Neither party voluntarily relinquishes power. It's fun when scandal forces them out, though.

This is incorrect. Foreign military aid is included in the data, and satellite procurement, operations, and sustainment is included in the services budgets. The Air Force pays for WGS, AEHF, SBIRS, etc, the Navy pays for MUOS, etc. There may be some gaps with the NRO stuff, since their budget comes from both DoD and the intel community, but that's a pretty small budget anyway.

DHS, CIA, FBI etc are not military organizations and as such are a seperate problem. DHS in particular should probably be eliminated completely.

Well, 'small' in that we're probably talking single digit billions, right?

I understand what you're saying about CIA/FBI - but certain activities (drones, for example, come out CIA) have no purpose other than 'defense'....

But we're losing perspective here....

Remember this all came about regarding a discussions of budgets and deficit spending.

It seems that we can all agree that at MINIMUM - the total annual "defense spending" is at least 900 billion... I say it's more than that, at least 1 trillion -- but no one seems to be disagreeing that it is at least 900 billion.

TANF -- 'welfare' -- total annual cost: 17 billion (including administration of the program, etc).

Even Social Security -- all outlays, from regular benefits (about 70% of total outlays) and SSDI ("disability" payments -- about 20%) -- is 'only' 800 billion... and keep in mind, those benefits aren't coming out of the 'federal budget'... the program is line-itemed specifically via payroll taxes (indeed -- those payroll tax receipts actually fund the defense 900 billion through intra-governmental lending).

For once, Andy, we agree - although I fear you cannot detect sarcasm.

Well, about six years of reading the things you've written with a straight face has possibly disabled my radar. But be that as it may, I'm glad you haven't yet morphed into Rabbi Baruch Korff. (smile)

You hate Catholics. I'd bet that's not the only group you hate, but its the only group you
can get away with mocking in polite society.

I've never understood this one. Being a Catholic isn't being born with immutable characteristics -- it's adopting a system of beliefs and joining an organization that has always reveled in wielding earthly political power -- other than of course when, as in the child molestation cases, they aren't asserting an inherent ecclesiastical right to preempt civil law.

How in God's name wouldn't Catholicism and Catholics be valid subjects of mockery?

addendum to my 179:
I realized just now that I've been making an assumption that may be invalid. What do "we" normally do when a world leader dies vis-a-vis int'l competition? I intrepreted from the excerpt that there was likely precedent here - I shouldn't have assumed that.

That aside, would you do this with the Canadian flag if their PM died in the morning?

G*d forbid. If Harper did die, however, I would hope for a moment of silence. Not only is Canada a parliamentary democracy and strategic ally of the United States but MLB games are played in Toronto.

@164 you spend hours googling-up various anti-Church bullsh1t, but you don't hate Catholism and Catholics? Sigh. The Rabbi of Jerusalem personally
thanked Pius for his help in saving hundreds of thousands of Jews during the War. The Church saved far more Jews than any other institution. When the Church
spoke out, there was always the fear of harsh reprisal, as with what happened when the Dutch Bishops did, and the ensuing round-up and murder of Holland's Jews. One of which was St. Edith Stein, and her sister.

As if a little bitty bigot will listen to another side...the first book is written by a Rabbi, btw.


http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0895260344/ref=s9_psimh_gw_p14_d0_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=18582NFVTR3NDB5CHV1D&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1389517282&pf_rd_i=507846

http://www.amazon.com/Pius-XII-Holocaust-Understanding-Controversy/dp/081321081X/ref=pd_sim_b_6


From the Inside Flap(of the first book listed)by Rabbi David G. Dalin:

Was Pope Pius XII secretly in league with Adolf Hitler? No, says Rabbi David G. Dalin—but there was a cleric in league with Hitler: the grand mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini. As Pope Pius XII worked to save Jews from the Nazis, the grand mufti became Hitler’s staunch ally and a promoter of the Holocaust, with a legacy that feeds radical Islam today. In this shocking and thoroughly documented book, Rabbi Dalin explodes the myth of Hitler’s pope and condemns the myth-makers for not only rewriting history, but for denying the testimony of Holocaust survivors, hijacking the Holocaust for unseemly political ends, and ignoring the real threat to the Jewish people. In The Myth of Hitler’s Pope, you’ll learn: · The true history of Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust—how the Catholic Church did more than any other religious body to save Jewish lives · The real history of the Church and the Nazis—including the Nazi plan to kidnap the pope · The real agenda of the myth-makers: hijacking the Holocaust to attack the very idea of the papacy—especially the papacy of the late Pope John Paul II—as well as Christianity and traditional religion as a whole · Hitler’s cleric—Hajj Amin al-Husseini, who advised and assisted the Nazis in carrying out Hitler’s Final Solution · How Pope Pius XII rescued Jews—and deserves to be called a "righteous gentile"—while the grand mufti of Jerusalem called for their extermination Full of shocking and irrefutable detail, The Myth of Hitler’s Pope is sure to generate controversy, and more important, to set the record straight. If you want the truth about Pope Pius XII, about the Catholic Church, the Jews, and the Holocaust, and about how the myth of Hitler’s pope plays into the culture wars of our own time—and how the fact of Hitler’s mufti is a vital source of radical Islam today—you must begin here.

So, not Barack Obama, then.

I note that Nixon did voluntarily relinquish power.

Obama permitted an election. Unless you have any evidence he would have had Romney arrested and the legislature dissolved if he had lost, I'm not getting your point.

Nixon relinquished power but arranged things with his successor so he would not have to go to jail. If he had stayed in power through term, he would not have been able to have himself pardoned by his successor.

other than of course when, as in the child molestation cases, they aren't asserting an inherent ecclesiastical right to preempt civil law.

Today, more minor children are sexually abused by adults in the USA in a single day in the public schools than in the care of the Church in a year. And most of
the problems of 30-50 years ago were due to the Church changing its seminarian policies in response to pressure to do so from people who would be described
as "liberals." At the time it happened, the matter was considered more of a mental health issue than a criminal one, this also contributed. And it was always something that happened at a rate lower than in just about any other institution.

It was a horrible horrible problem. But its been almost entirely eliminated, percentage-wise.

A personal anecdote: I went to a Catholic grade school in the mid 70's. There was a rather flamboyant 40 year oldish priest I will call Fr. Larry. Father Larry gave very dramatic homilies every Sunday that all the woman seemed to enjoy, but I recall the Dads in my circle would be a little put off by the guy, they'd say there was something
weird about him. In 7th grade or so, a lot of the boys were going through puberty, and Father Larry would take them into his office for little chats about how their
bodies were changing, he'd ask a lot of very specific questions about where the boy in question was in terms of sexual development, etc. All the guys who got called in thought there was something weird about it. All of them. He never called me in. I didn't really have to shave until college, and I'm no pretty boy. But the other guys who were called into the office, would all jsut laugh it off, and make jokes about how they were gonna tell Fr. Larry that "Hey you better have a good long talk with Brian. He's been dating Mary, and might be getting somewhere, haha." But that's the point I guess. We all just laughed it off as a creepy old gay guy getting his jollies by asking some of us sexual questions. No was horrified. We just thought it was pathetic. None of the parents did anything. It was the times I guess. I'm sure the way we acted wasn't the only example of this kind of reaction.

"The Church! Nazi child molesters!" Sigh. The Gates of Hell indeed.

Having said that, SBB, where do you draw the line on moments of silence? Mugabe? Assad? Ahmadinejad? Stalin? Hitler?

Is Chavez in these peoples' league? I sure don't see it.

ditto, those 4 "gentlemen" are not where you draw the line, they are all pretty clearly well past the no moment of silence line.

Chavez, by virtue of being an anti-american blowhard has been lumped in with tyrants that he pretty clearly does not remotely compare to with respect to thuggishness, dissident squelching, property confiscatoin and the like.

He's bad on respect for private property, not nearly as bad as Mugabe (or any communist country you can name past or present)

He's bad on how he treats the media, not remotely as bad as the regime in Teheren

He does not have a secret police apparatus constantly spying/detaining/torturing people and/or quasi-official militias doing the same - not remotely in comparison with those 4 men, or even in comparison with our "ally" his neighbor, Columbia - not liek teh Castros have in Cuba either.

In terms of civil rights (freedom from arbitrary detention, torture, etc) economic rights etc., Venezuela under Chavez was pretty pedestrian among the world's 150+ countries, his record is not good, but the record of most of the world is not good, Chavez was not especially bad- if you ran a list each year of the ten most tyrannical national leaders, Chavez never comes close to making the list.

but MLB games are played in Toronto.

Is this relevant? The WBC is an MLB production, but these aren't MLB games.

Not only is Canada a parliamentary democracy

One is a parliamentary democracy that elected your guy (not mine - though I certainly don't wish ill on him), the other is a federal democracy that elected a guy neither of us would vote for or want running anything of note (and I was glad to hear of his passing). Is this about Chavez or rooting for the laundry of conservatism?

I realized just now that I've been making an assumption that may be invalid. What do "we" normally do when a world leader dies vis-a-vis int'l competition? I intrepreted from the excerpt that there was likely precedent here - I shouldn't have assumed that.

good question

however, I would hope for a moment of silence. Not only is Canada a parliamentary democracy and strategic ally of the United States but MLB games are played in Toronto.

1: Venezuela IS a functioning democracy and it does not appear that Chavez's elections were rigged (unlike say Ahmadinejad in Iran where the elections were rigged at both ends)

2: An MLB affiliated minor league plays in Venezuela.

OTOH Chavez personally was outspokenly anti-American, and was basically a supporter of anyone good/bad/godawful who was also anti-American, and so why should anyone in America want to "honor" him?

BTW: 60% of Cuba's foreign exchange comes from Venezuela, 40%+ of their international trade is with Venezuela- basically without Venezuela's oil money Cuba is screwed-

Even if Chavez's deputy Maduro wins next month, the Castro Brothers have to be worried-

If Maduro loses: The free oil and others monies get cut off
If Maduro wins: Eventually he's going to see cutting back on Cuba aid as a way of helping his Government's finances, and it'll just get ratcheted down over time, if a financial crisis looms - poof- Cuba will be cut off

He died with his nation at peace, and was the head of state of a non-outlaw nation

Let's not give Chavez a free pass on his substantial support of the terrorists trying to overthrow the democratically-elected government in Colombia.

Let's not give Chavez a free pass on his substantial support of the terrorists trying to overthrow the democratically-elected government in Colombia.

Sure, as long as you are willing to extend that to US Presidents as well.

The number of murders in VNZ reached 20000 a year, 4X what the level was pre-Chavez. If you count those dead people against his legacy, he starts to look a lot worse. When you're dead, you're dead.

The best thing you can say about Catholics is that they're as disgusted with their hierarchy as anyone. According to a just released NY Times / CBS poll of American Catholics,

Seven out of 10 say Pope Benedict XVI and the Vatican have done a poor job of handling sexual abuse, a significant rise from three years ago. A majority said that the issue had led them to question the Vatican’s authority. The sexual abuse of children by priests is the largest problem facing the church, Catholics in the poll said.

Three-fourths of those polled said they thought it was a good idea for Benedict to resign. Most wanted the next pope to be “someone younger, with new ideas.” A majority said they wanted the next pope to make the church’s teachings more liberal.

With cardinals now in Rome preparing to elect Benedict’s successor, the poll indicated that the church’s hierarchy had lost the confidence and allegiance of many American Catholics, an intensification of a long-term trend. They like their priests and nuns, but many feel that the bishops and cardinals do not understand their lives....

When asked which “one thing” they would “most like to see the next pope accomplish,” the most common responses that respondents volunteered were, in order: bring people back to church, modernize the church, unify the church, and do something about sexual abuse....

Sixty-two percent of Catholics said they were in favor of legalizing marriage for same-sex couples. Catholics approved of same-sex marriage at a higher rate than Americans as a whole, among whom 53 percent approved...

The American bishops also appear to have lost ground among their own flock in their campaign to fight the White House rule that requires employers to provide insurance coverage for contraceptives — a campaign the bishops say is about religious freedom.

One year ago, two-thirds of Catholics polled said that religiously affiliated employers, like hospitals or universities, should be allowed to opt out of covering birth control for their female employees because of religious or moral objections. In the most recent poll, only about half of Catholics said they agreed.

The issue has become a political litmus test, with Catholic bishops and religious conservatives saying that their religious freedom is being threatened by President Obama’s policies. But when asked what the debate is about, only 40 percent of Catholics polled said “religious freedom,” while 50 percent said “women’s health and their rights” — an indication that Mr. Obama’s framing of the issue is holding sway even among many Catholics....

U.S. Catholics in Poll See a Church Out of Touch

A poll on the attitudes of Catholics conducted by the NYT has zero credibility. As a matter of fact, the NYT, as a news organ, has zero credibility.
Its more or less bad joke except for lefty Dems these days.

You know who poll badly? The media. Very badly.

All the News That Fits, We Print.

The number of murders in VNZ reached 20000 a year, 4X what the level was pre-Chavez. If you count those dead people against his legacy, he starts to look a lot worse. When you're dead, you're dead.

It's even more dangerous in Venezuela jails. 5500 prisoners have been killed in jail since Chavez took over. If Chavez's gangs don't get you on the streets, they'll take care of you in jail.

(Reuters) - Iran declared a day of national mourning on Wednesday after the death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who shared the Islamic Republic's loathing for U.S. "imperialism".

This was my favorite post, along with the one quoting the American Enterprise Institute on conditions in Venezuela. Because, of course, the idea of American imperialism is pure lefty fantasy. We'd never, say, invade other countries for our own gain.

As for Chavez, I like Chris Hitchens' skeptical reporting of Chavez's mental health during Bolivar's exhumation, and Chavez's belief that the appearance of the American flag in the moon landing photos was evidence that the landing never took place: After all, the flag sticks straight out. Is there wind on the moon?

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